


mercy is no stranger to pity

by lavwings



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Blasphemy against Halone for the sake of Blasphemy, Gen, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22986862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavwings/pseuds/lavwings
Summary: a blurb of the first time Aymeric and Estinien meet.more of a description for an actual fanfiction than a fanfiction on its own, probably
Kudos: 3





	mercy is no stranger to pity

When he is eighteen, they push him to his knees in front of an effigy of Halone in a nigh forgotten house of worship, far from the Vault, for throttling a noble’s son in a fair spar. Pray, they tell him. Pray for forgiveness for his arrogance and pride. It will be an unjust punishment for his victory.

He had not been the one to issue the challenge out of pride, but he had ended it raw, bitter power.

“Pray for what?” he asks, his nose bloodied from one of their gauntlets, and his ribs aching from a stray kick when four of them had dragged him off of the crying whelp. “Pray for some Furious Bitch to grant me a few more miserable years on this world to strike down the dragon that would make the lot of you piss yourselves with fear?”

His snarl is cut short from the passive appraisal of one of the parishioners, who stands and addresses them with a face so beautiful that the Fury must have had no hand in creating him. The Bastard of the Archbishop, in a house of worship so far removed from his father’s Holy Seat that it left the knights who’d throttled him agape in shock. He should not be there-- but neither should they, with the most prominent young dragoon of their age bloodied and outnumbered. Aymeric de Borel fixes them with disapproval for their violence in the small chapel and even he is not immune to it, for the blasphemy that spewed from his lips. 

“Surely,” Aymeric speaks, his voice as soft as the velvet in a knife box, “this is unbecoming of House Durendaire’s guard. And a dragoon…? If you depart now, neither your Lord nor your Captain will hear of it.” 'A dragoon.' The words come as an insult--as if Estinien had not made leaps and bounds of progress ahead of his peers. As if he was not chosen to smite down Nidhogg himself, as the whispers on the street went. As if Aymeric the _Bastard_ had never heard of him. 

Estinien finally learns what shame feels like as it burns across the back of his neck, but not to risk de Borel’s influence, the offending bastards scatter to the wind. Like a cat that did not, in fact, land on it's feet, Estinien stood and spat blood to the tattered rug that spanned from the door to the dais of worship. He slinks from the room, his ears red with embarrassment and his pride still left battered on the church floor. 

It is a feeling that returns less than a year later when it is Aymeric himself that bestows the title of Azure Dragoon upon him, the memory of his silent judgement fresh in his mind. The rage of humiliation that bubbles in him is second only to the revenge he seeks against the wyrm himself, but it goes hand in hand with an emotion he has no words for, welling up in his throat until he feels he may drown.


End file.
